Tuesday, 21 January 2014

From Swipe to Touch to Invisible Touch - The Evolution of Fingerprint Sensors in Smart Mobile Devices

From Swipe to Touch to Invisible Touch - The Evolution of Fingerprint Sensors in Smart Mobile Devices

Readers of a certain age will possibly remember Genesis, the English prog-rock band that featured first Peter Gabriel and then Phil Collins on vocals. In the 1980s they released a rather poor 13th album called ‘Invisible Touch’. Little did they know that we would use that title in a rather obscure pun in an article on the evolution of fingerprint sensors in smart mobile devices (SMD) – the album cover is rather relevant though! And if you hear ‘Invisible Touch’ wafting over the speakers
at a product launch at MWC 2014 – you know where they got their idea from.

This blog explores the evolution of fingerprint sensors
designed for consumer electronic devices including smart mobile devices; from
swipe to touch to ‘invisible touch'. This blog first appeared in the January 2014 edition of the Goode Intelligence Market Intelligence publication; "Fingerprint Biometrics Market Intelligence" (published 28 January 2014).

Smartphone OEMs rush to embed fingerprint sensors

Despite the intense media attention that accompanied Apple’s
launch of Touch ID embedded fingerprint sensors on mobile phones have been
around since 1998. Ever since Siemens
developed its prototype device back in 1998 there has been steady stream of handsets being biometric-enabled.

Fingerprint sensors
are becoming a common-feature of flagship smartphones with an increasing number
of mobile device OEMs joining Apple in launching high-end devices during the
latter part of 2013. This included HTC, Fujitsu and Pantech. So far, all these
Android-based devices have used swipe fingerprint sensors, sourced from either Fingerprint Cards (FPC) or Validity Sensors. For these android
devices, the sensor is being located on the rear of the smartphone (see image
of HTC One max below).

Apple Touch ID - leader for smartphone touch sensor

Apple is so far the
only mobile device OEM to have launched a device with an embedded Touch
Capacitive sensor (shown below). The sensor uses capacitive touch technology to
take a high resolution (500 pixels per inch or ppi) from small sections of a
fingerprint (from the subepidermal layers of the skin).

Source: Apple

There are advantages in
using a touch sensor over a swipe sensor on a mobile device:

The user experience is usually superior

Greater accuracy; there
appears to be fewer failures as the finger is better positioned for touch. For swipe,
the finger has to be swiped accurately over the sensor to ensure that the
fingerprint is read correctly. On some smartphone implementations, especially
on larger devices (phablets), the location of the sensor on the rear of the device
makes this difficult when holding the device with one hand

The sensor can be
built into a hard button on the front of the mobile device, e.g. home/power
button

Non-Apple smartphones - first swipe then touch

Goode Intelligence
believes that for the first quarter of 2014 a number of Tier 1 mobile device
OEMs will launch flagship models that incorporate a swipe sensor. This will
include further HTC models and releases from LG, Lenovo and Samsung (Samsung
may want to launch with a touch sensor to match the user experience of Apple’s
Touch ID).

The three remaining fingerprint
sensor manufacturers who can supply to the mobile device industry, Fingerprint
Cards, Idex and Validity Sensors (part of Synaptics) are all in the process of
commercialising their versions of the mobile-ready touch sensor.

Fingerprint Cards is
probably in a more advanced state of commercialisation and has gone on record
to say that their touch sensor (FPC1020) has been sold
to a “Tier 1 OEM” for a “flagship smartphone with a targeted launch date in the
summer of 2014”[1]

Idex and Validity will
follow FPC in launching their own touch sensors during 2014 and GI expects to
see them appear in smart mobile devices and other consumer electronic devices.

Next generation consumer fingerprint sensors - Invisible Touch

The third stage to the
evolution of mobile device-based fingerprint sensors is driven by the need for greater
user convenience combined with a trend to remove physical buttons from smart
mobile devices. Partly as a result of the reduction of the bezel-size and driven
by the trend for larger touch screen sizes.

The elimination of
physical buttons creates a problem for component suppliers including
fingerprint sensor manufacturers as it removes an obvious place to position the
sensor. It also provides them with an opportunity for new markets for their
products.

The positioning of the
fingerprint sensor underneath, or within the touch screen, is the next stage in
the evolution of consumer fingerprint biometrics and enables mobile device OEMs
to remove physical buttons. It also ensures that the convenience of identification,
touching a finger on the front of a mobile device, is maintained.

GI believes that all
of the fingerprint sensor manufacturers currently operating in the consumer and
mobile space are well advanced in their research and development efforts to
make this a reality:

Idex released this videoafter demonstrating
a proof-of-concept device that placed the fingerprint sensor within the touch
screen display

Validity Sensors is
now part of Synaptics who are one of the world’s largest suppliers of touchscreen
technology. Synaptics are also developing fingerprint sensors built into the touchpads
that are embedded into laptops and notebooks

FPC has demoed demoed
touch sensor capabilities with Windows for integration into Windows 8 (8.1) products
and also works with CrucialTec,
manufacturer of the optical TrackPad (OTP)

This includes Apple
and the resources that were integrated as a result of the AuthenTec acquisition.

‘Invisible Touch’ is not
only suitable for smart mobile devices; any consumer electronic device that
uses a screen has the potential to integrate a touch fingerprint under or
within the screen. This could include smart TVs, single-use gaming handhelds,
tablets, touchscreen monitors, hybrid notebooks and touchscreens integrated
into domestic appliances and smart house control technology. Whether anybody
would want to authenticate using their fingerprint for their fridge is
debatable (although perhaps if you wanted to stop a young child from turning on
an oven or keeping your teenager out of your wine cooler?).

This is a potentially
huge market and is part of the wider Consumerisation of biometrics that will
revolutionise how we interact with technology.

This opportunity will be explored in an upcoming analyst report published by Goode Intelligence; "Emerging Markets for Fingerprint Biometrics".